488 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



again of taking advantage of an abnormal condition. 1 

 have said that it is the unusual things which alarm liirds. 

 Birds may nest under bridges and become accustomed to 

 the passage of teams six inches above their heads or on 

 railroad trestles and not mind the roar of the trains above 

 them, and yet the same birds may not allow a [lerson to 

 approach within ten feet. Birds have been known to nest 

 on trolley cars and traveling cranes and to become accus- 

 tomed to the transportation of their nests from ])lace to 

 place, when the same birds might have deserted their eggs 

 for good if one approached the nest too suddenly or made 

 a cpiick jump at the bird. Such things are possible only 

 when they occur by degrees and so often that they become 

 a part of the routine of a bird's life. .\ny bird will ordi- 

 narily allow one to approach within a certain distance of 

 itself or its nest, varvin*/ with the itidividual, before tak- 

 ing alarm. If one ttioves sljwl}' and uniformly, he can 

 a;;proach much closer, but if he makes sudden or jerky 

 motions, ])auses and •starts, or ,itlei'.i])ts to sneak u],on 

 a bird, he usuallv alarms it at a much greater distance. 

 Similarlv the volume of a sound makes littk- difference to 

 birds. The roar of a passing train does no! usually 

 alarm them when a little squeak will cause them to junijj, 

 because the sound of the train begins low and far awav 

 and gradually increases in violence, but at no time is the 



added increase in sound sufficient to disturb the bird, 

 though the whole volume of sound is hundreds of times 

 more violeiu than that which would ordinarily alarm it. 

 If the train should suddenly increase its speed or sud- 

 denly stop, the bird would become greatly alarmed, lint 

 as the sound dies gradually away it goes unnoticed. 



If then we would make friends with birds or merely 

 observe them without attempting to inake friends, we 

 must bear these things in mind. In the first place, fear 

 is the predominant instinct and except in tmusual in- 

 stances or with abnormal birds dominates the bird's life. 

 If one wishes to come on iiuimate terms with birds be 

 must either seek oiU the unusual birds, take advantage 

 of times of stress, or be content to conceal his identity, 

 and like the branches of the trees become but a part of 

 the bird's eiivironntent. If one will enter a woods qtiietly 

 and then remain quiet and inconspicuous for an hotir 

 or more, the birds will resume their normal actions and 

 he will see the woodland as it really is. If, on the other 

 hand, he goes thrashing through the woods, he will cover 

 more ground and scare up more birds, but they will 

 "have no habits" except those of alarm. Select a spot 

 near a bathing pool, a favorite feeding spot, or near 

 the nest of some bird and there will be spread before 

 him a |)anorama unknown to the rest of mankind. 



A TREE OF LOST IDENTITY 



BY JOHN FOOTE, M. D. 



Till'; wood of this tree .jf lo-t icK-iitily was so valu- 

 able that cu]is made from it were ])reseiited as gift^ 

 lo kings and pontiles: its physical properties were 

 so remarkable that famous scientific men studied it and 

 embodied their observations in classical works that are 

 still authoritative: its medical proi)erties were believed 

 to be so marvelous that they exceeded in the cure of 

 diseases of the kidneys what cinchona had accc)mi)lished 

 in banishing swamp fever — it was a veritable king amon.j 

 trees in the seventeenth century — yet its very name ha 1 

 disappeared from modern works on bot;niy and phar- 

 macognos\- and its botanical origin was worse than un- 

 known. Such is the tale of the lignum nephriticiim — the 

 botanical sduvce of which was discovered very recently 

 l)y a brilliant economic botanist who found that the tree 

 l)roducing the "kidney wood" was reall\- a twin or rather 

 that it had two botanical sources. 



This wood was celebrated throughout Enrope in 

 the seventeenth century. It came from the Old World, 

 the land of mystery, out (jf which had come tobacco, 

 cinchona and other remarkable jiroducts. .Mar\elloiis as 

 were the reports circulated concerning cures it had ac 

 complished, even greater things were exiiected of it. 

 For chronic kidney disease had claimed many victims 

 long before 1827. when Dr. Richard P>right iiublished 

 his description of the disease which bears his name, and 

 it seems to have been unusn;illy prevalent in the |)eriod 

 of the renaissance. 



i he li(/iiiiiii iicphyiliciiiii. or "kidney wood," when 

 pulverized an<l steeped in water produced remark- 

 able color effects of an opalescent type, which 

 changed in sunlight and shadow in the most amazing 

 manner. There is nothing to indicate that its medicinal 

 re])utation was well founded. In fact, it has ab.solutely 

 no value as a remedy in kidney disease. It has been 

 well said that "the theraj)eutics of every generation 

 seems ridiculous to the succeeding one," so we camiot 

 afford to be scornful of the Spanish physician Monardes. 

 \vliii was first to call attention to the wood. In 156;' 

 he wrote the following account of it: 



"They also bring from New Spain a wood resembling 

 that of a pear tree, dense and without knots, which the\' 

 have been using for many years in these parts for dis- 

 eases of the kidneys and of the liver. The first person 

 I saw u.se it was a pilot, 25 years ago, who was afflicted 

 with urinar\- and kidney trouble, and who after using 

 it rrc(i\ered his health and was verv well. Since then 

 I li;i\e seen much of it brought from New Spain and 

 used for these and kindred maladies. * * * It is u.sed in 

 the f(jllowing manner: They take the wood and mak^' 

 of it chijjs as thin as possible and not very large and put 

 them into clear sjiring water, which must be \'ery good 

 and ])ure, and they leave them in the water all the time 

 that it lasts for drinking. A half hour after the woocl 

 is put in. the water begins to assume a very pale lilue 

 color, and the longer it stays the bluer it turns, though 



